22nd November 2000

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Dr Sean Farren, Minister for Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment, has attended the Coleraine campus launch of “Paths To Settlement”, his new book about Northern Ireland’s turbulent political culture.

Before becoming a MLA and Minister in the Assembly, Dr Farren was a Senior Lecturer in the University of Ulster’s School of Education.

Written in conjunction with former University of Ulster Visiting Professor Robert F Mulvihill, the book examines the many attempts to resolve the conflict in Northern Ireland, beginning with civil rights movement and Prime Minister Terence O’Neill’s attempts at reform in the mid-1960’s, continuing up to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

For the most part, the authors claim early efforts at peacemaking suggested only mechanical political solutions that deepened the already agnostic pattern of relationships. It was not until existing relationships were challenged, most crucially in the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 and subsequently in several other initiatives jointly determined by the British and Irish governments, that the main parties began to participate in efforts to create a democratic peace.

The search for peace had always been overwhelmed by the violence that reinforced separation. But changing relationships and the end of the violent campaigns have created new opportunities for peace building, say the authors.

Deep wounds still remain unforgiven, failed stereotypes persist and fear abounds. Yet despite all this as the authors argue, a political and cultural process is now in motion that gives peace its first real chance in Northern Ireland history.

‘Paths to a Settlement’ is published in paperback by Colin Smythe Publishing Ltd and costs £8.95.

For further information, please contact:

Press Office Department of Communication and Development
Telephone: 028 9036 6178
Email: pressoffice@ulster.ac.uk